1. I saw Pretty Baby and it reminded me of my stepfather and I thought I could get paid for it. 2. I saw Pretty Woman and I liked the clothes.3. I saw a Demi Moore movie and I thought, Wow, what an easy and fun way to make a million dollars.4. I like getting fucked by the football team, the fraternity brothers, and law students at graduation parties. I realized that gang rape could be a transcendental experience.5. I figured that laying on my back and getting fucked by hundreds of men, and getting on my knees and sucking thousands of dicks, was the most profound empowerment a woman could have.6. My vocational counselor and I discussed a whole lot of possibilities: doctor, lawyer, women's-studies teacher, legal secretary. I was offered a four-year scholarship at Stanford, but frankly, prostitution seemed the most rewarding job option available.7. I worship the goddess and she told me, "Fuck mankind." I misunderstood her spiritual message and found myself in lifetime sexual servitude instead.8. I came to appreciate the depth of Hugh Hefner's, Larry Flynt's, and Bob Guccione's understanding of my sexuality.9. My boyfriend wanted me to do it. He said that being part of a stable of whores who worked for him could help me learn how to get along with other women.10. My father wanted me to do it.11. I met a nice man on alt.sex.prostitution.12. Camille Paglia told me it was the feminist thing to do.13. I felt coerced by my landlord, the day-care center, the utility companies, the grocer, my dealer and my plastic surgeons to pay my bills every month.14. I didn't want to work at Red Lobster.15. I wanted to be treated like a lady.16. I went to COYOTE's Halloween extravaganza, the Hookers' Ball, and found out just how glamorous prostitution could be.17. It's complicated, but I thought that working in the sex industry would increase my self-esteem. It's sort of like saying to the world, "I am the best Grade A ground beef" and being the cow.18. And then, ya know, even though it all sounded really good, and selling fucks and blow jobs sounded really empowering, I realized that talking about it and writing books defending it would be even more empowering."

"There are five main consequences of this discourse of hate. First, sex workers who are confronted with these opinions are likely to doubt their self-worth and their self-agency, and may put themselves in the position of victim, thus making it more likely they will become victims of violence. When subjected to violence, they are less likely to make complaints about it.

Secondly, the discourse encourages hatred of sex workers, clients and all who support sex workers in any way. All cultures have approved objects of hatred. Often this hatred takes aim at whole classes of people. Speech denigrating particular groups has been described as a ‘psychic tax on those least able to pay’. As an example, it has been shown that negative comments about the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) communities contribute to increases in physical and verbal violence against homosexual and transgender people. This can be extended to sex workers as well.

Thirdly, conflating sex work with trafficking and violence against women has affected the funding of sex worker groups. For example, PEPFAR (the US government AIDS fund) will not fund organisations that support sex workers or promote the decriminalisation of sex work. As a result, this has led to groups that supply sex workers with condoms, or support the rights of sex workers, not receiving funds, thus endangering the lives of sex workers and putting them at risk of HIV infection. This policy also reinforces stereotypes, stigma, and discrimination against sex workers.

Fourthly, male, gay, transgender and gender-fluid sex workers are made invisible. The violence against these groups is ignored, and rarely appears in any of the papers they produce. In fact, male sex workers rarely appear in any of their publications, perhaps, because they assume male sex workers to be gay men. For example, Sheila Jeffreys calls gay men the cause of women’s subjugation, while male-to-female transgendered sex workers are referred to as ‘self-mutilating men’. Perhaps they count even less as human?

Finally, and cumulatively, the discourse actively encourages violence against sex workers. The way something is defined can make a huge difference in how it is perceived and how it is interacted with. When one understands a group of people as ‘other’, different, dirty, filthy, stupid or malevolently manipulative, then one can support or condone the violence that occurs. Whether this is forced rescue, forced health checks, taking children away from their parents, or rape and murder."